One of my earliest memories as a pro football fan was the Kenneth Sims Bowl. It was played in Baltimore back on December 20, 1981 between the Colts and New England Patriots. As with any bowl, it was the final game of the season for these two teams, and it had a trophy: the loser would get Kenneth Sims, the two-time All-American defensive tackle from Texas. Sims was coming off a Lombardi Award-winning senior year, and was the consensus first pick in the 1982 NFL Draft.
I remember watching the game in front of the Christmas tree, full of anticipation not for Kenneth Sims, but for a New England victory. They were hard to come by since Chuck Fairbanks deserted the Patriots on the eve of the 1978 postseason, but the Colts had lost 14 straight games themselves going into that final Sunday afternoon. The game's linkage with Sims was like a scarlet letter; no one wanted to be the worst team in the NFL. Not even for Kenneth Sims. Both teams played to win. The lead changed four times and when it ended, Baltimore had the victory and New England had Kenneth Sims.
The moral is that once upon a time the Colts franchise had integrity.
For some football purists, the stitches of honor that bound one of the NFL's most endearing teams began to split a few years later when owner Robert Irsay snuck the Colts out of town under the cloak of darkness. He instructed movers to take fifteen different routes across the Maryland border to avoid police detection. Once in Indianapolis, the Colts scratched out a meager existence, oscillating for years somewhere between nine wins and the No. 1 draft pick. Then came another split in the stitches. Following consecutive 9-win seasons during Peyton Manning's sophomore and junior years at Tennessee, the Colts opened 1997 with 10 straight losses; Manning was wrapped up by Week 13.
But he alone was no guarantee to the Promised Land. Some extracurricular meddling was in order. After playoff losses to the Patriots ended Indy's 2003 and 2004 seasons, Vice Chairman Bill Polian exerted his considerable influence over the NFL's Competition Committee, getting passage of rules changes that bestowed national treasure privileges on wide receivers, of which the Colts had aplenty. Sprinkle a little fake crowd noise into the RCA Dome to hinder opposing receivers, and the pieces were falling into place. Eventually, Indy got past the Patriots and won a Super Bowl, which brings us to the modern-day Colts.
This is the team that took a giant knee against the New York Jets near the end of what could have been a perfect 2009 season, managing to screw America out of a long-overdue riddance of Mercury Morris from our collective conscience. Well, they're on their knees once again, with perfection in the air. Perfect imperfection. A loss to the Tennessee Titans this Sunday would drop the Colts to 0-14, only two years removed from the 14-0 mark they carried into that Jets game.
The carrot, of course, is Stanford's Andrew Luck.
Even if Manning hasn't demonstrated his football mortality this past year, and even if Polian decides to honor his future Hall of Fame quarterback's insistence he not draft a successor just yet, Luck is going to be the first pick of next April's draft, and the Colts are going to be the beneficiary one way or another. No other college player has greater claim to the top selection, along with the riches and fame it brings. If it's not the Colts who take Luck, it will be the team that gives them a boatload of future picks for the opportunity.
Luck — or his equivalent in compensation — may be fair compensation to an organization whose top star was shelved for an entire season. Then again, this is the NFL. You are supposed to be able to move on. That's what the Dolphins did in 1993 when they closed 5-6 after Dan Marino's Achilles tear. The Jets did it too, coming off an AFC Championship appearance only to see Vinny Testaverde tear his Achilles in the 1999 opener, yet rebounding from a 1-6 start to win 7 of their last 9 games. So too, did the Patriots, going 11-5 after Tom Brady went down with a knee injury in Week 1 of 2008. None of these teams mailed it in. They refused to lose the Kenneth Sims Bowl.
Then again, none were run by Bill Polian.
Polian has a long track record of self-servitude, accentuated by his position on the Competition Committee. But now he has the opportunity to do a greater good. He can exert some of that influence to install a draft lottery system that would prevent anyone else from desecrating the spirit of competition in the shameless manner he has.
Football doesn't need 1,000 ping pong balls to legislate competitive morals, but it does need a little more than the 50/50 proposition the NBA used from 1966 to 1984, whereby the worst teams from each conference flipped a coin. You know Polian would pull a two-headed quarter from his sleeve.
When David Robinson broke his foot before the 1996-97 NBA season, the San Antonio Spurs were left with a lottery season sandwiched between two years of 56-plus wins, yet they only had a 25% chance of landing Tim Duncan. Those are the best odds the Colts should be given, too. It gives hope to their desolate fans, yet is a sufficient disincentive to forego developing a backup quarterback, or insert a 68-year-old coach as defensive coordinator when he hasn't held the job in 28 years, and even then in the CFL.
A one-quarter Polian is better for football than a full Polian.
Once upon a time, the Colts did the right thing: they played for pride. Kenneth Sims went to New England and wound up a bust, posting only 17 sacks in 74 games over 8 seasons. But this franchise is no longer trustworthy enough to do the right thing, which is why the league has to. A lottery-based draft will give us another rule we can name after Polian, but this one will actually prove good for the NFL this time.
December 15, 2011
Anthony Brancato:
While I respect, and even personally agree with, your basic premise, Bob, in a culture that teaches that second place is the first loser, you’re asking an awful lot in expecting the Colts to in effect take the view that next-to-last place is the last winner.
Interestingly, it actually was that way once: As a 7-year-old child growing up on Staten Island, NY, I marveled at how the adults around me were so proud when the Mets, in 1966, finally finished ninth in the then 10-team, undivided National League after having been last in all of the first four years of their existence.
But then, what Christopher Lasch accurately characterized as “The Culture of Narcissism” (which he made the title of what turned out to be a best-selling book) took hold - and here we are now, when “runner-up” is synonymous with “choke-artist.”
Even so, the NFL should decree that in years when the AFC team wins the Super Bowl, the team with the worst record in the NFC gets the top draft pick, and in years when the NFC team wins the Super Bowl, the worst team in the AFC gets it. Besides taking away the guarantee of getting the first pick by tanking games, it helps promote competitive balance between the two conferences, and maybe then one conference won’t win the inter-conference season series like 20 years in a row.
December 16, 2011
Kevin Beane:
In this article, without coming right out and saying it, you are accusing the Colts of mailing in the season, not giving 100% in order to secure the #1 pick in the draft.
Specifics, please. What strategy did they employ that clearly betrays an interest in winning the game? The only one I see pertains to 2009.
The fact is, teams suck sometimes. Just two years ago, the Lions went 0-16. Just about every year, we see a team go 2-14 or worse. It happens. And the NFL has enough parity that teams can rise and fall precipitously in just one year.
I think you have a theory and are projecting like mad.